Blog

Research published this year by UC EXPO interviewed 1,000 British ‘White-collar’ employees about what was most important to them in the workplace. Flexible working came out on top by a large margin, with 82% of respondents saying that flexible working hours would make them more likely to accept a job offer than one offering fixed hours.

In recent articles we have covered different aspects of the recruitment process and given tips about how employers can streamline their efforts to attract the best candidates. In this article, we explore the recruitment practices that are most likely to put a candidate off the application process.

With the referendum on Britain’s continuing EU membership less than three months away, employers in all sectors are busily debating the positive or negative impact that a ‘Brexit’ (BRitish – EXIT) from the European Union would have on their business. While we are not in a position to advocate one position or the other, it is interesting to read some preliminary opinions from people working within the recruitment industry.

Creating a great job advert is not only about attracting the right candidates for your role; it is to create excitement about your company and work to enhance your brand awareness. There are plenty of ways to get a job advert wrong, like filling it with indecipherable corporate jargon or leaving out basic information, such as the salary or job location.

For high-tech and digital industries, the modern workplace is becoming more and more competitive – for employers as well as candidates. For highly skilled, desirable candidates, there is often the luxury of being able to choose to apply for several suitable positions. Attracting the right candidates, and offering them a compelling reason to stay is therefore an important incentive for employers.

In 1805, Britain was famously, and contemptuously, dismissed by Napoleon Bonaparte as a ‘nation of shopkeepers’. Like many other attempted historical putdowns, this label has been taken as a badge of honour by many Brits for the past 210 years, to describe the pride and self-sufficiency of the British workforce. But to what extent is this still true?

The budget has finally put all agencies on the same playing field. First Base Employment have always taken the moral high ground on this. Workers cannot legally be paid travel and subsistence for walking to work – they cannot claim laundry expenses unless they are self employed and even then there are stipulations on making claims (as there are for any one of us).

Temps are common feature of workplaces up and down the country, ranging from small IT support firms to large call centres and warehouses. Many companies find fixed term contracts to be a convenient and affordable way of hiring staff, and it is the preferable option for many contractors as well. However, the question we are often asked is what are the comparative benefits of hiring temps versus having a permanent member of staff (and what are the costs involved).

As much as you may feel it is you primarily doing the interviewing when a potential new recruit arrives at your office, the process of evaluation is very much a two-way street. From the moment the recruit steps out of their car or bus makes and their way through your office doors, they are busy making semiconscious snap judgements about whether they want to work for you.

We are actively recruiting for job roles that we are struggling to fill; finance admin, FLT drivers, reliable packers and warehouse operatives as well as (as always) engineering staff with the following skills:

With combined experience of over 40 years in the Engineering and Manufacturing sector our team recruits for many of the leading Engineering and Manufacturing employers in the region and are specialists at finding those hard to find skills.